When it started there was a feeling that we wouldn’t be bound to our homes for very long. But we put up a brave face as the lockdowns continued. It was cooking time, sharing-of-hobbies time and learning-new-things time for some.

Now it has been four months and counting. And these four months have changed our lifestyle in a way that we couldn’t have thought possible. Except for those in production units, others were forced to embrace new ways of conducting professional engagements, wherever their line of work permitted them to do so. Even in early March, before the lockdown, who could have thought of a new sales pitch happening without physically sitting across the table with a client? And accounts getting settled without a closed-door physical meeting?

Notice how I am putting ‘physical’ in italics! Or writing ‘meeting’ with physical as its adjective. Four months back, a meeting by default would have meant physical as opposed to virtual. And if we needed a virtual meeting, only then would we have described the meeting as virtual.

Even the addas are happening online! Who would have thought that a bunch of ageing school friends, living in the same city, would get together on a virtual platform to chat or share jokes? Something that was once quite unacceptable despite all the tools being there is now an accepted as normal.

Yes, life has changed in the last few months and it has also changed the way we conduct business. We are now afraid of physical closeness let alone contact or crowds. And we are finding online meetings much easier to deal with than physical ones.

The lockdowns have made “WFH” or work-from-home an everyday phrase. I haven’t come across any authentic productivity survey related to this yet, but some evidence suggests that WFH is working fine. Even employers have found new advantages in allowing their people to work from home.

But is too early to jump to conclusions. Changing social behaviour across the board is not very easy. And we should remember that professional behaviour is but a part of our societal character. But there are a few points that have been noted by everybody across the spectrum. It is possible to work without being ‘there’. And work from home may not necessarily reduce the productivity of an employee. In the coming days, we will see a lot of changes in the functioning of a business, but the extent of change will take time to crystallise.